The Both of Us
by Tensei Kano
Summary: I'm Tensei .. Sometimes I wish I wasn't If I was never born, I would never have shot my brother... Life sucks, but this one really takes the cake. When Tensei Kano finds himself lost in the worlds largest pandemic, he runs into a strange A man named Joel, and a girl named What will he do when he finds out that the girl is just like him - immune?
1. Only Me

_**Chapter 1 - Only me**_

Why was it always me?

Why... All I wanted to do was lose my mind, together with my friends. We were all infected, so why did I survive? My family was gone. My friends were gone. Why was I singled out?

And more importantly... Why did I have to pull the trigger?

I was frozen, in a kneeling position, knees dipped in the blood that stained the floor. Not my blood.

My brother's.

And it was my brother's corpse that lay at my feet. I knew him for 14 years, there was no mistaking it. Every stupid moment we had together was racing in my mind. The fights over the radio station, the laughs we had with our little group of teen outcasts, the conversations we held over the campfire...

And I killed him?

Yeah. No matter how I phrase it, how I say that it was in self defence, it don't matter. He had turned, I shot him, it was me. My fault.

They say fate is a cruel mistress, but now I saw the truth. She wasn't a cruel mistress at all, that was an understatement. She was a sadistic bitch, delighting in the pure despair and torment of others. And she was currently laying it heavy on one, poor, fourteen year old boy.

Me. Tensei Kano. Or so the teen outcasts called. Apparently my mom came to their families, bleeding and about to die, and a two-year-old beside her, had birth, then gave up. I was born, the families that found her decided to take care of me and my brother, along with their own children, and then my mother died.

The last thing she whispered was my name: Tensei Kano.

Staring at my brother's corpse, I wish she'd died before she could birth me. It would save me a lot of pain.

* * *

I drifted out of my reverie and shook myself. That was five days ago, and I had been mindlessly walking ever since.

The world I lived in and grew up in was a stupidly tough place. Way before I was born, there was an outbreak of epic proportions. And this was the kind of "epic" that wasn't coined on what used to be called the Internet. This was a pandemic of inane speed, spreading through contact, air, spores. The ground we lived on was full of them. There wasn't much choice for escape. 4 billion people either died or were infected. The Spanish Flu had nothing on this monstrosity of a spreading disease.

And why wasn't I a walking zombie, just like the rest of them? The people I belonged with had turned, why hadn't I?

I didn't know. I never knew.

Most of my life was spent with a pack of homeless kids, all from the families that accepted me and my brother. And it was a strange life. We foraged, worked and stayed within the area. Anyone caught trying to leave the city would be stopped, sometimes with deadly force, by the Military. They were a group from the government trying to stop the spread of the disease, by cordoning off the area. No one came in, no one came out. And if anyone did come out, well, that was why they had guns and batons.

Only one group was formed against the oppressing forces: The Fireflies. _Remember, when you're lost in the darkness, look for the light. Believe in The Fireflies. _Good sales pitch. Pity they were getting hunted down one by one, thanks to the military.

You see, we had the intention of escaping the city, initially. We needed to get across country, to another town where there were less people, more resources. There wasn't enough food, or space, for us to keep living here. So we devised the plan to smuggle ourselves out. Distractions and all.

The plan failed.

The few of us that managed to avoid the Military gunfire were ripped apart by a pair of infected that strolled a little closer than normal to the city. It was hard to see them all get ripped apart, by bullets or by infected, but we didn't stay long. If I think back, the first scene I'll always remember was seeing Erin's mom get torn apart. I was close to Erin. In fact, I had a crush on her initially. We were good friends, but no one ever found out about my crush. Of course, at the age of thirteen, our families were destroyed. Me and my brother, Kazuki, weren't as affected as the rest, because they weren't literally our parents, but it was still terrible to see out life-long caretakers be torn to pieces.

I couldn't do anything at the time. I tried to comfort Erin, and it kind of worked. She stopped crying - she wasn't normally a very emotional person, but her mom was her biggest support - and smiled at me, thanking me for my reassurances and company. But she was never the same, her lush green eyes had lost their spark. They weren't just empty, they were... dead.

So that left about six of us. My brother, being the only sixteen-year-old of a group of fifteen to thirteen year olds, took charge and led us all out into the world. He was a leader, a true survivor in a dog-eat-dog world. He knew how to scale impossible buildings and manage to grab furniture to make a little home in a bombed-out hole in a hillside, like a rabbit hole, on the outskirts of another town. It was abandoned… or so we thought.

_And we thought we were safe…_

The worst of the infected were known as clickers. Clickers were the rarer zombies that took a few months to a year to develop. They were deadly, clickers. Strong as a fit human, reacting purely on instinct and sound. The fungal material grew out of their once-human orifices and blinded them permanently. Over time, they grew used to echolocation: The process used by bats to make them aware of their surroundings. They made strange clicking noises that bounced against walls, telling them where everything was.

It might sound bad, but we grew up with weapons. We learned to use sharpened wooden stakes as shivs, crowbars as lethal weapons. Once in a long while, we would find guns. My brother was an ace with the rifle. He could hit a moving clicker at a hundred yards. And that was hard to do.

I was more suited to a pistol, with my lightweight build. But I didn't have that much practice. Like I said, a gun was a luxury.

And my best weapon was used to kill my brother.

I shuddered involuntarily as I remembered the previous two days of hell, climbing through buildings, completely mindless of where i was actually going. They were tough, clickers. We could only take them out when three of us ganged up on one, and even that wasn't a surefire success. With a group of six teens, we had no chance when we got ambushed by a squad of about four clickers.

I waded through the pool of milky, algae-invades waters and headed for a large building. That was probably where I would spend the night. It might sound like a stupid idea to you - why the hell would a kid try to spend the night in an open building, when infected could come in at any time? But fourteen years of living in the world's worst pandemic caused one to sleep with one eye open and both ears out. Even footsteps and falling pebbles could wake me up. In short, I was a light sleeper.

The only way in, though, was a few stories up: a broken glass window. I sighed, then tensed my muscles and jumped at the wall, my fingers sliding into the cracks, and I began to haul myself up.

Of the eight of us..only three of us remained alive. Me, Kazuto and Erin. She may not have looked it, with her soft brown hair in a ponytail, and gentle green eyes, but she was an ace improviser in combat. She didn't have a weapon when the clickers attacked, but she managed to pick up a few bars and twigs, nailing together a slingshot in a matter of seconds, using rubble, glass and nails as projectiles. I had my pistol, while my brother swung his rifle butt like a bat, seeing as we didn't have any more of his rifle balls. Apparently, his rifle couldn't fire the same rounds that mine did.

Hah. The irony. Of the three, I was probably the least useful. Erin would have disagreed, saying we were all as useful as each other, but I knew. I panicked and fumbled the most in combat, and I couldn't make decisions to save my life.

So why did I survive?

I stumbled through a broken glass window, feeling the shards of glass cut into my light-brown pants. I barely felt the glass, even though it almost punctured my skin.

Hah... Again, the irony. With such determination, I kept moving, kept going. Where was I even going? I was terrible with Geography. And I don't mean the subject. Geography was the term we coined in our little group for understanding terrain and navigating areas. I could barely remember how to navigate our home area, let alone wild, new terrain.

"What the hell am I doing?" I whispered. No answer. Why not? It was a desperation message. I didn't expect anyone to hear it. Except maybe a God, if one existed.

God... Hah! You religious types out there would be offended to no end to hear this, but in my life and my thoughts, there was never a god. If there was a god, why the hell what he make this shit-fest up? A mind-controlling fungal pandemic? Yeah, good job, if you actually made that up. Good bloody job, you ruined the world. Some deity you turned out to be.

If there was a god out there, I knew this much: I couldn't trust him.

Voices.

I paused, then stopped behind a wall. Out of my back pocket, I drew my pistol with practiced ease. A 9mm handgun that I retrieved from a fallen Firefly. It would sound brutal to you all, but when Fireflies or strangers were killed, it was kind of a good thing, because of all the loot they would leave behind. Each time we did this though, we thanked the corpse for allowing us to live another day, as though it was a blessing.

A curse for one, a blessing for all.

And if that was how the world worked, I could be the next blessing.

The voices grew louder, heated. I could make them out now... Adults. A man and a woman. The man sounded commanding... Almost angry.

"...we are survivors!"

"No, this is our chance-"

"It is over, Tess!"

The last line was roared throughout the echoing confines of whatever building I was in. It chilled me, the finality of his tone. I followed the sound, making sure my tracking shoes were on right; tracking shoes were normal trainers with soft pads and cloth on the soles to mask and muffle any sounds. They had gotten me through a dozen different situation, and I hoped they'd get me through this one.

"Now we tried... Let's just go home." The male voice insisted gruffly, but the female voice interrupted him.

"I'm not... I'm not going anywhere." The woman said, dead despair creeping into her voice. I sneaked to the floor above the main hall. The railings were mostly broken, so I pressed myself flat against the floor and crept outward to get a good look.

A man, a woman and a younger girl. Not that young, maybe my age. The adults seemed conflicted in an argument, and the woman was lamenting her luck, and how it had run out.

"What the hell are you talking about...?" The man raised an eyebrow. His beard was thick on his face, making his permanent scowl more pronounced. "Tess, I-"

"Don't!" The woman known as Tess knocked his arm away from her shoulder. "...touch me." She finished miserably. The man seemed so lost in her attitude.

For the first time, the girl spoke. "...Holy shit..." She stared disbelieving at the woman with black hair tied back. "She's infected."

_Oh damn... No wonder she's so panicked._

The man sucked air in quickly, then stared at Tess with the same look of disbelief. "...no... Let me see it."

"I didn't mean for this to h-" Tess started, but-

"Show it to me." The man cut her off. Reluctantly, she tugged her shirt collar away, to reveal an ugly, red and spreading field of fungal material. "Oh Christ!" He exclaimed, his expression solidifying with fear. But no fear for himself or the girl: fear for Tess.

"Oops, right?" Tess dead panned. A moment of silence, then the woman landed her gaze on the girl. She marched over to her and commanded. "Gimme your arm. Now." A second later, the girl's long sleeve was tugged back.

_Shit... She's infected too? _

"This was three weeks, Joel!" Tess yelled. "Three weeks! I was bitten an hour ago, and I'm already worse!" She all but ran up to him and looked him dead in the eye. "This is fucking real, Joel! You've got to get this girl to Tommy's, he used to run the crew, he'll know where to go-"

_Wait... What?!_

I stared at the marks on the girl's arm, from my perch on the upper floor. Those marks... They were only skin-colored, and not at all growing. That was when I realized... She was immune?!

That changed everything. I needed to follow these guys... I needed to. There was no other option. I needed a direction, and this was one. There was nothing for it. The sound of an army van vibrated outside, and I swore. Not more of them... I didn't normally attack them, but I might have to, to help these guys escape. Maybe I could-

"Go. I'll hold them off." Tess commanded

"What?!" The girl exclaimed. Clearly, the bearded Joel agreed with the meaning behind this question.

"This is my last stand." Tess responded. "I will not turn into one of those things!"

"I'm not gonna just leave you here, I can fight-"

"No, just go!" Tess shoved Joel away. With a last plea of desperation, she whispered audibly, "just fucking go..."

The man was conflicted , but eventually made the move.

"Ellie." He called. And the girl responded.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for any of this-"

"Get a move on." Joel interrupted. The girl got the head-start, then the man followed suit, with one last glance back at the woman who was clearly a partner of some sort.

A long silence. The woman sighed, and took a defensive stance, pistol raised against the door.

_Any moment now..._

The door opened, and a helmeted head poked around the frame. Instantly, his head was almost blown off by the force of the bullet that Tess fired.

"Shit! Fireflies in the building!" The men outside yelled. "Move up and pressure them!" With that, the door was flung open, and all hell broke loose. The woman may have been good, but there were about half a dozen men out there. No way she could make it alone.

Despite being overwhelmed, Tess took a breath and unloaded 3 shots into one incoming military man, then shot one last bullet through the doorway. Judging by the scream outside, it had met a target. Made of flesh.

Of course, the Military men were larger, and had numbers. They rushed in and all aimed at her, unloading a couple of bullets each. I could only say that it was brutal. Pure murder. I would have sighed, but that would have given me away. _Canis canem edit. _Dog eat dog, and every man - and woman - for themselves. At least, I think that's what the latin phrase was. Uncle Troy, one of the men of the old group, used to be really into Latin phrases. Which made it all the worse when he was killed a few minutes after encouraging us that the plan would work with the words _carpe diem. _Hilarious, if it weren't already so tragic. Nothing like a little latin to make a man feel intelligent.

"Search the area." The military man spoke through his mask, bringing me back to earth. "The other two will be trying to escape. You, take the door. You, come with me."

_Perfect…_

Even before the failed escape plan, no one liked the military. They oppressed us and took the majority of our dwindling rations, all because they had higher status… in their own minds. I would be happy to take a couple down.

I patiently waited for the right moment, letting the pair jog after the other two. As expected, the leftover man stood guard at the door. And it was this moment that I was extremely glad for my tracking shoes.

A pillar adorned the corner of the room, near the doorway next to the soldier. I tensed my muscles again and leapt up to it, grabbing onto it and sliding down. The movement worked perfectly, and I slid downwards, my feet gently touching down-

Crack!

_Oh crap…_

A section of the pillar's base crumbled away, making a noise loud enough for anyone in the room to hear. It was too much to hope that the trained soldier would not noticed. His head flicked so fast, it could have been spring-loaded. With a loaded gun, he walked towards the pillar, behind which I was crouched low.

_Nothing for it._

I leapt out from behind and tackled his legs. In a panic, he fired his pistol at me, and I felt the bullet whistle past my face, searing pain where it made contact. I kicked off the floor and shoved my gun into his unarmoured chin and pulled the trigger once.

I might as well have set off a bomb in his face. the bullet shredded half his face to pieces, and he fell away, instantly limp.

_Wouldn't be the first time I shot a human...that was after me._

I tacked the last bit onto my thought in an effort to avoid the memory of my brother, and his face when I shot him.

_Damn… too late._

I grimaced, then rifled through the dead military man's pockets. A shiv… and four bullets. Checking his breast pocket, I found a couple of ration cards. Heh… wouldn't hurt to keep them on me, just in case.

A soft moan from behind caused me to spin around. I half expected an infected of some sort, when I realized it was coming from… the dying woman on the ground.

_How the hell-?! She got shot more than six times, how isn't she already dead?_

I walked over to her and looked down on her. Her face and arms were shot pretty bad and bleeding, so I didn't know how she was alive. Her eye slowly moved to look at me, as though asking what I was doing.

"Don't worry, miss Tess. I overheard your conversation from above, and I need to follow Joel. He's holding an immune person, and that's my key." Why was I explaining myself to a dying woman? She wouldn't know who I was in a couple of minutes. But I pressed on regardless. "I'm not going to harm them, I swear."The eye kept staring at me as I ripped away my shirt's left sleeve.

Underneath the cloth was a mark almost identical to the one the girl called Ellie had on her wrist. An infected bite.

"It's been five days. I'm the same." I revealed quietly. "And if they have people that can get a cure from me, I'll be glad to help. Two is better than one, right?"

Gunshots rang from the halls way behind me, followed by yells and orders. They must have found the two…

"I hope you find a better place to move onto." I bid her farewell, then ran off in pursuit of my own instincts. If this was the direction I had to take, then so be it.

I would rather a perilous journey than being left alone.

* * *

**T/N: Hey guys, Tensei Kano here to announce the beginning of this new fanfic: The Both of Us.**

**I wanted to start this one to make up for the fact that my World Ends With You fanfiction is discontinued. I tried to maintain it, but after a few months, I realized I'd lost the spark that made me excited about TWEWY. I will say, right now, I should not have her made that fic. It was something I did on a whim, and as a result, I lost my drive for it by the time chapter 4 rolled round. I didn't even want to upload chapter 4, but I forced myself and uploaded it anyway. I didn't enjoy that.**

**So I'm branching out into my favourite genre of games: Horror gaming! The Last of Us is good or me not to write about it. So there we go! I promise to respond to all reviews every time a new chapter is uploaded, so I hope you will review! Really, I don't look at ratings too much, but I love to receive review feedback. If you could spare your thoughts to me, that would be awesome!**

**I will say that this style of writing is slightly different, as its meant to be more emotionally focused. I hope you guys enjoy this, and keep updates for more chapters! I'm not a regular uploaded though xD**

**Tensei out!**


	2. Similarites

_**Chapter 2 - Similarities**_

"They're in the subway! Stop them!"

The huge vehicle unloaded another half-dozen soldiers into the subway stairs. Damn! I finally manage to play catch-up to the pair, outside of the building, and already, six more soldiers to deal with.

They wouldn't have left the vehicle unmanned, so I was careful as I squeezed past it, slowly sneaking lower and lower into the subway station's depths. Hopefully, I wouldn't alert the driver in the truck, if there was one-

"Hey! Freeze, boy!"

_Speak of the devil..._

I turned around and shot at the source of sound. Maybe luck, maybe hidden talent, and I highly doubted the latter. Either way, the shot his the man's unprotected head, and he fell to the ground.

No time to search this guy, I had to get after those two!

"Copy that... Two in the subway, search the area." I heard voice, static and blurred through a walkie-talkie speaker. Good... They still didn't realize my presence. The less they knew the better.

I rounded the corner and found myself in a room filled with foggy spores. Damn... Visibility was almost zero now. Worse, the smell of spores was unpleasant... A sick, sour smell.

"How are you breathing in this stuff?" A gruff voice came from the left. For a moment, I thought the voice was referring to me. But even as the thought passed through my mind, an unmuffled voice of the younger girl whispered back, "I wasn't lying to you."

The ultimate proof. She really was immune, just as I was.

More importantly, the military were closing in on us. I hid in the shadows, and waited for an opportunity to strike, to make my presence known to the pair. They would need all the help they could get.

The gruff Joel leapt out at the right moment and smashed in the Military man's skull with a strong iron pipe. A direct hit, then up came his gun, and-

BANG.

The soldier fell away, lifeless. Another two soldiers shouted commands into their walkie talkies, raising guns. They fired, and the pair ducked behind the crate.

_I think that's my cue._

I snuck up from the right, hiding myself against the blackened wall, waiting for the soldier to come in range. As he did, I held the shiv that I stole from the dead military man earlier, and leapt in for the stab. All according to plan, the shiv entered the side of the man's neck, and he choked, struggled, then fell silently, lifeless.

"What the hell?" His partner exclaimed. I took advantage of his confusion and raised my pistol.

One to the arm,

Another to the chest,

And boom, headshot.

The man fell down. I breathed hard, feeling an odd mix of elation at managing to survive, guilt at having killed several men, and confusion from the remaining question in my head - when the fuck did I get so good at aiming?

I realized the pair from behind the crate were staring at me, the man's beard covered by the gas mask. I lowered my gun and gestured outwards, to the other exit of the subway. "Get out of here, these spores aren't going to do you any good."

They snapped back to reality and rushed over to the steps.

Seriously, when did I manage to get this confident in my gun skills?

* * *

"Okay, and who are you supposed to be?"

Clearly, Joel was not looking to exchange pleasantries, preferring to get to the point.

We had gotten outside, and Joel had taken off his gas mask, seeing as the fresh air lacked spores. He had sat next to a tree, on some rubble, to rest for a minute. Ellie stood behind him, looking at me intently. I could tell: she didn't know what to make of me.

"My name is Tensei Kano." I explained, still panting slightly. "I followed you back from the big building before the subway."

"And why the hell did you do that?" Joel pressed on without missing a beat.

"I overheard you were going to someone called Tommy, who ran the Fireflies? I need to-"

"Everyone's looking for bloody Fireflies." He interrupted rudely. "They all think that Fireflies will be salvation, the end to all your problems. I'm telling you now, boy. They won't help you without a reason. There's no way-"

"Wait."

It wasn't even me who interrupted. The soft voice belonged to none other than the girl from behind Joel.

"You're... You as well?" She asked, as though uncertain of the outcome. I responded by ripping my left shirt sleeve up, revealing what I had shown the dying woman earlier: pale, white infection marks.

"Okay, that's where I draw the line." Joel growled, standing up again, reaching into his back pocket for a weapon.

"Wait!" I stopped him. "It's not what you think! This was five days ago!"

"Oh don't lay on that bullshit." He growled. "Victims turn in a day, at most. If you think I-"

"Then why has she had hers for three weeks?" I interrupted. His expression goes dead. "That's right... You don't know why, but she's immune. And for whatever damn reason, so am I."

A beat of silence passed as the implications of what I had said went through their minds. "I knew it." Ellie whispered, breaking the pause. "You don't have a gas mask with you either... You're like me..."

"Please." I begged. "I don't have a direction, and I don't have anyone else. Can I please come with you to the Fireflies? I can't do anything else..."

The man considered it, staring at me closely, weighing the odds out. Eventually, he came to his conclusion. "Fine. But you better pull your own weight, I'm not a babysitter, and I don't plan on learning to be one."

My heart seemed to explode with relief. "Thank you." I was genuinely happy. I couldn't handle the leader role, even if it was for just myself. Before we move on though, there seemed to be a chill in air between us all, a thick tension I didn't understand, until Ellie spoke up to Joel.

"Look... About Tess." She stared at her feet, unsure. "I don't even-"

"Here's how things are gonna play out." Joel stopped her coldly. "One, you don't bring up Tess - ever."

_Wow... Harsh..._

"Two, both of you listen: you don't tell anyone about your... condition." He spat the last word out, as though it left bitterness in his mouth. "They'll either think you're crazy or kill you."

I nodded, eager to accept the rules and become part of this group.

"Lastly, you both do what I say, when I say it. Clear?" I nodded, and Ellie followed my lead, though more reluctantly. "Repeat it." Joel commanded, almost hostile.

"I'll do what you say, when you say it." I promised. He turned to Ellie, who did not look happy at all.

"What you say, goes." She concurred. Joel did not look satisfied - I didn't think he ever could - then looked away with a sudden lack of conviction.

"Good." He dead panned. He stared out west, then sighed. "Now... There's a town. Couple miles north of here... Good chance he could get us a car." Joel had a habit of talking in slow, yet seemingly cut-off sentences. Closed, almost.

Ellie was despondent. "Sure." She replied listlessly.

"We'll c'mon then." Joel ordered. And come on we did.

Ellie, I decided, was a much more interesting person to speak to than Joel was. We spoke to each other while we walked, and she was showing more and more curiosity in me every time I answered a question. One thing was for sure: she was much more assertive than I was.

"So you've got a strange name... Where is it from?" She asked as the sum baked if from its perch in the sky.

"Oh... It's Japanese. Apparently my mom was mostly Japanese, and it seemed important to her that my name was Tensei..." I trailed off. How much should I tell her? The whole story? Or hide my family? Then again, why would I hide my past?

"Do you have a shorter name I can call you? I can't get past saying the first syllable of your name." Ellie admitted.

"Hmm... Well, I guess you could just call me Ten." I offered. "I mean, if that's all you can manage."

"Ten... Ten... Ten..." She muttered it to herself, rolling it around her mouth and seeing how comfortable she was with it. "I like it." She nodded finally. "It suits you."

"Thanks." I wasn't really sure why I was thanking her, but it seemed the right thing to do. "Ellie's a pretty name as well."

"And thank _you_." She smiled, then it was back to the questions. "So if you're Japanese, do you know the language?"

"Not really." I revealed. "I never had a mom that was there to teach me - she died shortly after I was born - but my brother did teach me one phrase."

"And that would be...?" Curiosity lace her voice.

"_Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu._" I recited. Despite the lack Japanese I possessed, I could always manage to say that term with proper pronunciation. "It's kind of a complicated term, one that doesn't translate well. {people use it when they first begin to work together, or get to know each other. Kind of like saying "it's nice to meet you," or "I hope we get along." Well, maybe not the second one." I added as an afterthought.

"That's sounds difficult." Ellie muttered under her breath. I laughed at the comment, then wondered about her own past.

"So... What about you, Ellie?" I asked back, finally. "It's pretty rare to see people my age in this day and age." The truth was, in the fourteen years of my life, I'd never so much as seen or heard of a kid or teenager other than our little group. Rumours were that we were the only teens in the city. Clearly false, looking at Ellie.

"Not much to tell. Mom died when I was one, passed me off to her friend Marlene. Living ever since, got bitten... And now this." She grimaced, holding up her right hand.

Now there was something interesting. Ellie's past was close to, but not quite, identical to mine. Parents died early, passed off to someone else... Interesting.

"You two done chattering back there?" Joel's voice contrasted Ellie's lighter, higher one. "I swear, you're gonna talk the ears off of me." Ellie seemed genuinely sorry for bringing up the subject, but I walked on ahead, to catch up with Joel.

"There we go." He pointed to a town some distance away. "It'll be easier if we get off the road to head straight for it, though." With that, he vaulted over the iron rails. I followed suit, and heard Ellie do the same, behind me.

"Woah…" She breathed, soaking in the sights.

She wasn't wrong in soaking up this sight. The sunlight from the orange-yellow light in the sky dropped through the leaves of the humongous oak tree towering above us, light leaking through the cracks like liquid gold. A single solitary bird swooped from the tree as we approached it, zipping off into the distance in the blink of an eye.

"What?" Joel looked back at Ellie.

"Nothing." She responded. "I've just never seen it before."

"What, the woods?" A hint of incredulously crept into his voice.

"Yeah. Never walked through the woods… and it's kinda cool."

And it was. I thought to myself, looking at the rocky, mossy path down to the city: If someone one day were to write a story about this, not that many would read it, but this would be the perfect place for a book cover.

"Why don't you just take me back to Marlene?" Ellie asked Joel. I frowned. Marlene… There was a name I knew, but not well. Just a bubble in the sea of my memories. Marlene was the leader of the Fireflies. At least, if it was the Marlene I was thinking of. I'd never met her, but I heard she was one hell of a fighter. I couldn't tell you where I heard that from, even if I wanted to.

"If she was fit to take you, why'd she leave you with us?" Joel raised a bushy eyebrow.

"Well, maybe she's better now." She countered.

"Kid… I don't mean to upset you, but your friend's chances of survival were pretty slim to begin with…"

"She's a lot tougher than you think." Ellie persisted, but this time, Joel waved her down.

"It don't really matter. Cause I doubt I could get any of us back into the city in one piece…" He shot her a look of tired admittance. "Trust me, I wish there were some other option."

There were no words between us for next half hour as we traversed the treacherous territory.

* * *

"Okay... What the fuck is that?!" I had to exclaim.

Who could blame me? We had barely walked twenty metres into town, and already, we were confronted by a huge, and I mean huge, wall of bedsteads, wooden fixtures and even a broken up car, sealing off the road completely. The entire structure was piled high with coils of barbed wire, some of which had long since rusted.

"That'll be Bill's work alright." Joel sighed, his face pulled itself into a loaded look that said 'Oh boy, this is where the fun begins.' And not the kind of fun you actually enjoy. "We'll make our way through the buildings."

We explored the abandoned town in silence, stopping only to check the back alleys, most of which were dead ends. "So, say we find this friend of yours," Ellie spoke up, "and he gives us a car. Then what?"

"Well, then we can go find Tommy." Joel grunted, being careful not to trip on the cracked roads.

"Marlene said he was your brother?"

"Yeah. More importantly, though, he was a Firefly. He'd know where to take you two." He added.

A question popped into my mind. "What about you?"

"Huh?"

"Why aren't you a Firefly?" I clarified. I was genuinely curious. It paid to stay together in times like these, right? So why didn't he?

"We went our separate ways." He grunted, his eyes shifting slightly. "Circumstances were better off that we separated for the mean time."

That wasn't really answering why, but I let the question drop. If he didn't want to give the real reason, why press him? We slipped to an alleyway in the side of the barricade. Before we could even get to the end of it though, Joel flung a hand out to stop me. Ellie, too, stopped walking forwards.

"What's up?" I asked, but he simply hushed my and pointed forward.

A clicker.

My stomach clenched. I hated those above all infected. Too strong, too ugly, and too many bad memories. I drew my pistol, but again, Joel stopped me and pointed. The clicker must have heard us, because it took rapid steps in our direction. Ten metres from us, however, it ran into what I thought was a string of cobweb.

BOOM.

The explosion took me by surprise, and it is Ellie as well, judging by the fact that she had cowered just as I had done. Hen the smoke cleared, we saw the clicker, all but incinerated by the explosion, dead on the ground.

"What the fuck was that?" Both me and Ellie exclaimed in absolute unison. No practice nessecary.

"That..." Joel tugged the remains of a metal wire from the wall. "That was one of Bill's traps."

A trap?! "What is he, an engineer?" I queried.

"Kind of. He likes his contraptions, and he's pretty good at what he does."

"Paranoid, much?" This from Ellie.

"Now that's putting it likely." He gave a small chuckle, the first I'd ever heard from him. Up until now, he was a bipedal bag of depressed determination. It seemed only commitment to the job was keeping him going. He turned to us as we scaled a broken wall and helped us up, one-by-one. "While we're on the subject of Bill, I gotta tell you two something, so listen up."

"Bill isn't the most... stable of individuals." He began, choosing his words carefully. "So when we see him, you let me do the talking."

"Should we be looking for this guy if he's that dangerous?" I asked nervously.

"Nah, Bill's a good man. He just requires a little time to warm up to you... kind of."

I wasn't convinced, and neither was Ellie, cvident from the mix of worry and disgruntled uncertainty on her face.. "If you say so." We muttered, again, with perfect syncing. Joel eyed us for a moment.

"Don't do that. That's both creepy and annoying."

We moved further, before we came across a corpse of a non-infected man. Lying on his corpse, however, was a sleek, wooden weapon with a single string for tension. The string wasn't clean, but it was tight, and the tension was still nice and firm.

"Well look what we have here." Joel picked up the hunting bow. He plucked the string like an instrument to test, and found it twanged audibly.

"Maybe I could use it." Ellie piped up hopefully. "We could have each other's backs, you know?"

"How about no?" Joel shook his head firmly. I stared. It made sense to me...

We came to a late warehouse, which we could only access through the back alley. Convenient... Only one door,

"Alright let's..." Joel turned the knob on the wooden door and stepped into the next room.

I caught a glimpse of a loop of rope on the floor, before a realised a second trap was waiting for us.

"Oh f-"

There wasn't even time to curse. The length of rope tightened around Joel's ankle, and with a huge crash, a fridge fell from the ceiling. Acting as a counterweight, it hoisted Joel into the air, upside down. It was almost comical, had we not realised what a terrible situation this was, especially with what came next.

"Dammit, Bill!" Joel cursed his absent, paranoid 'friend.' What was worse, we heard groans and croaks from the outside. Infected! Worse, not just any infected. The whole lot of them: Runners, Stalkers and Clickers. Stalkers were a Runner-clicker hybrid. They were fast, partially blind, but focused. Just what we needed...

"Ellie!" Joel yelled. "See if you can get to the fridge, cut the rope! Ten, get your gun out, 'cause it's about to get messy!" With that, pulled out his own pistol from his pocket and took aim.

Runners came in, living up to their name, bounding wildly after us. Our first shot penetrated, and they fell lifeless, if not getting hit in the arms or torso first. But it wasn't enough. Joel couldn't handle himself well upside down, and the infected were slowly closing in.

"Ellie!" Joel snapped, as a zombie came within range to wrestle him, upside down. "Any time this year would be wonderful!"

"It's not cutting!" She cried, failing to sever the rope with the sharp stone she'd found. I cursed and tossed a runner aside as he got too close, then shot him squarely in the neck.

A panicked cry made me turn around. "Let go of me, you fucker!" Ellie shouted, struggling with a pair of runners, fully intent on ending her life.. I yelled aloud, half to scare away the runners, partly out of fear and worry for my new ally, and loaded three shots into the pair, leaving them down on the ground, causing them to go still.

"Screw this!" Panic rising now. I was running out of bullets fast, and an empty gun would not help me right now. I took careful aim and fired at the rope.

Of all the times my aim had to fail me-!

A clicker came close, and I froze. It was even uglier up close, fungal matter sprouting a flat shape out of it's eyes. I grabbed a shiv from my pocket and stabbed it. With a scream of pain, it recoiled and landed a blind blow on me.I grunted as I hit the floor. The gun flew from my hands, and I scrambled to get it. I managed I reach it and twisted around, only to see the clicker speeding straight at me, arms outstretched.

_Oh shit... This is it, then?_

Just as the clicker came within biting range, it got hit hard by a huge, shining machete, and was sent flying to the side. It was dead before it hit the floor. I looked up at my saviour and saw a gas-mask covered individual, machete in hand.

"Get off your ass and on your feet." The long-haired man said, his voice unfamiliar. He proceeded to turn around and threw a sharp blade at the rope above the fridge, slicing the rope that bound Joel's ankles. He fell to the ground in a heap, and the newcomer helped him stand.

"Ellie!" I ran over to her. "Are you alright?"

"Peachy." She was breathing hard, and the panic was getting even to her. "And by peachy, I mean: Never let me do that again."

"C'mon, this way!" The strange, masked individual roared, leading the charge with a machete and a shotgun. Where the hell did he find a shotgun? Heavy weaponry was rare in this day and age. I hadn't seen a shotgun since… scratch that, I hadn't seen a shotgun.

We ran desperately out the warehouse, led by the machete-wielding individual, hacking away at two zombies at once. Joel took some infected out at long range, while me and Ellie could do nothing but stay close behind. I would have helped, but I couldn't. Not anymore. Why not? Well, if you're asking me that, maybe you should also take the time to ask my empty pistol. Why couldn't I help, empty pistol? Oh right, because you were fucking _empty._

Basically, I was pissed that I'd used all the ammo I so carefully hoarded.

"We can make it through the front entrance." The long-haired man ordered gruffly. "Get to the front, avoid the wire, and… _shit!_"

His exclamation wasn't for nothing. Several infected runners ran into the pile of wires, draped across the shell of the car. They scratched and cut themselves open, effectively killing themselves on it. Unfortunately, their dead bodies now provided other infected with sufficient protection to climb over the fence of sharpened deathtraps.

"Through the back, through the back!" The man changed his mind again. Joel snarled and took the iron pipe from his backpack, smashing an oncoming clicker into the side of a rusted, broken truck, before stabbing it in the neck with a knife, pinning it there forevermore.

The flow of mindless adversaries were slowing now, but appearing randomly, and more spread out, making the situation no less stressful. A croaking noise came from behind me, and I got dragged down by a pair of infected. Grunting on the ground, I opened my eyes to see two stalkers, fluid flowing out of their facial orifices, intent on strangling me to death. I growled and fought dirty, punching, struggling. My hand managed to wrap around a brick, and I swung it with all the force I could muster, into their faces. One flew backwards, away from me, while the other came closer than ever, rough, mutated fingers crushing my throat.

A huge crack, and I was showered with glass fragments. The infected fingers loosened around my neck, and I began to breath again. The stalker blinked, pain permeating it's eyes, then looked up, only to receive a second glass bottle, straight to the face. As it howled in pain, I capitalized on its confusion and swung at it's face with renewed strength, knocking it away. As it was thrown backwards, I leapt forward and stamped on it's throat, acting purely on instinct. It choked and died almost instantly.

Ellie was panting harder than ever, a third glass bottle in her hand. At that moment, she was looking stunning, sunlight sparkling through the bottle, showering her with golden light, definitely no strain on the eyes. Having said that, I can safely say anyone that saved me at that moment would have looked beautiful. Even the machete-wielding lunatic!

"No time for thanks." She snapped, pointing after the two men, who were rushing ahead. I nodded, and we dashed as fast as we could to safety. As we turned the corner, we saw the man vanish through a door, Joel gesturing to us furiously. No need for words to guess what he was trying to say.

I'd never felt so relieved than when I rushed through the grey door and heard it click behind us.

"Man… that was close..." Ellie was first to speak, and it was to the masked man, who had taken off his mask and revealed a rugged, lined face. He strolled up to her and eyed her down. Ellie held her hand out to shake. Polite. "Uh… Ellie." She introduced.

My relief was cut short when the man did not shake her hand, but wrapped a shining metallic cuff around her wrist. Without a word, he dragged her over to the rugged wall and secured her to a rusted pipe sticking out of the wall. "Hey! What are you-. Joel? Ten?" Ellie's confusion was apparent. "Let me go, you f-"

"Bill!" Joel shouted. The rugged character named Bill didn't even miss a beat, smoothly grabbing my arm and drawing another set of cuffs.

"What the fuck?!" I struggled, but I was no match for his muscled form. He cuffed me and dragged me to the desk, linking me to the bar that held the table up. Joel strode towards him to intervene.

"Bill, that's-"

With practised ease, he drew a pistol and pointed it at Joel. "Turn around and get on your knees." He commanded calmly.

"Just calm down, Bill." Joel's voice had become low and wary, as though approaching a bear. Ellie tugged and tugged at the pipe holding her cuff. Meanwhile, Bill was having none of it, insisting less calmly.

"Turn around, and get on your knees!"

"Okay, okay… ugh!" Joel grunted as Bill knocked him to his knees and searched him.

"Any bites?" He interrogated. "Anything sprouting?"

"No, god dammit, I'm clean!" Joel's patience was fraying, a hint of anger on his face.

There was no time for anything else. Ellie tugged the rusty pipe she was cuffed to clear off the wall and rushed at our captor, batting him as hard as she could.

"ARGH!" Bill clutched his shoulder and backed away as Ellie was preparing a second swing. Joel stood up just in time to stop her, with a quiet whisper. "Son of a BITCH!" Bill cursed foully.

"Are you done?" Joel pointed angrily at him.

"Am _I _d-" He seemed to be suffocating on the amount of angry things he wanted to say. "You- you come into my house! You set off every single one of my traps! You damn near break my shooting arm-. Who the fuck are these punks, and what are they doing here?" He turned on Joel.

"I am none of your goddamn business!" Ellie started angrily, before Joel could answer. "We're here because you owe Joel some favours, and you can start," She lifted her arm, the bar hanging in the air below it. "by taking these off!" I instinctively put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. She tensed up at the contact, then relaxed and slipped me a look that said: "it's okay, I'm fine."

"Oh, I owe Joel some favours, now do I?" Bill waved his uninjured arm in the air, voice dripping with sarcasm. "This must be some kind of fucking joke." He seemed to calm down ever so slightly.

"I'll get to the point then; I need a car." Joel stepped in.

"Oh, it _is _a joke then. Joel needs a car!" He repeated to himself, polishing his machete on the table I was still chained to. "Well, even if I _had _a car, which I sure as hell don't, what makes you think I'd just give it to you? Sure Joel! Take my fucking car, take my food while you're at it, why don't you?"

"By the looks of it, you could lose some of that food." Ellie replied sharply. Bill looked more furious than ever and pointed the machete straight at her.

"Listen to me, you little shit-"

"No, fuck you, you handcuffed me!" She shouted back at him fearlessly.

"Stay the hell away from her, asshole!" I snapped, knocking the knife away with my right hand, my other one still chained to the table.

"Ellie!" Joel's voice was louder than any of us. He held her back and looked her dead in the eye. "I need you to _shut up._"

There was a beat of tension as Ellie's rage had not quite left her eyes. Again, I reached out and clapped her shoulder gently. She looked at me and slowly, reluctantly, calmed down.

"Whatever favours you think I owe you, it ain't worth that much." Bill was back to sharpening his machete. Joel dropped his voice to one you did not argue with.

"Actually Bill, they are."

A look that spoke of the past was swapped between the two men, and there seemed to be a shift in the man's attitude as he began to relent. "Well it doesn't matter. I don't have a working car."

"But there's one in this town." Joel pressed.

"Parts! There are parts in this town." Bill emphasized. Joel sighed and put a hand to his face. For the first time, a trace of defeat leaked into his expression. I frowned for a moment.

"Hey…" I spoke for the first time, without any killing intent in my voice. "If there are _parts_ in this town, surely you can put a car together." I began to choose my words carefully. "You're a mechanic, for fucks sake. Surely, someone like you who managed to build all those smart traps can put together a car."

Joel's sucked air in sharply as he looked at the pair of us, first me, then Bill. Bill's face was one of consideration for the first time. Jackpot.

"I must be out of my mind…" Bill muttered, then turned to Joel. He pulled out a complicated map and pointed at an area marked with red pen. "If I'm going to do this, I need some parts from an area on the other side of town." He stabbed the red area with his finger, as though it insulted his mother. "If you can get those parts, I might be able to put something together that runs. _Might._" He held a finger sternly at us. "But after this, I don't owe you shit."

With that, he slammed down a pair of keys on the table. Joel snagged the pair of keys with his index finger and turned to Ellie first. "That's fine." He sighed. "Couple of days from now, we'll probably be dead anyway." He then turned to me and shot me a look that might have been gratitude.

_Might._

"Whole town is booby-trapped… Let's go." Bill took command again. "Best stay right on my ass."

"Can't miss it." Ellie shot back.

"Not in a century." I added.

"Get a grip, both of you." Joel reprimanded us both. Shaky laughter from us both.

I've seen this laughter before. It's the kind of laughter you have just after you defied death, practically slapping it in the face, then had to go back and apologize.

And hope that death didn't slaughter you for it.

**T/N: Aaaaand over! **

**Hey guys, Tensei Kano here again. Just a heads up to those of you who know my work from other stories (Outside of The Last of Us), and those of you who know who Yuki is, just getting it out there that she is NOT working with me on this Fanfic, only on my SAO one. For now.**

**Review reply corner: 1 review. (Sadface)**

**Water Gaurdian 26: The joke was so bad, I laughed anyway. o.0 Nice to see you traversing onto this story as well. Hope you keep with the story!**

**And that goes for you all as well! Keep with the story, I promise it will show more and more of Ellie and Tensei's interactions. That's the main point of this fic: What if Ellie had a constant companion to talk to? And this is the result.**

**Be back soon with another chapter!**

_**Chapter Preview**_

"It's a simple drop-off job." Joel sighed, deftly avoiding the second question.

"What's the cargo?" He stopped and looked back at Ellie and me, then chortled. "What, these two brats?"

"Oh, ha ha. Fuck you too." Ellie shot back.

_Oh boy..._

**Not a great preview, but I actually haven't written out chapter 3 yet. Sue me, fuckers xD.**

**Tensei out!**


	3. Guilt

_**Chapter 3: Guilt**_

"Alright … You gotta check the barricades again. You neglect the simple shit and now you're paying for it…"

"Okay, well now he's talking to himself!" Ellie rolled her eyes. "Joel?"

"Yeah, I know." Joel replied tiredly. "Bill?

"Yeah? It's this way." Bill seemed completely oblivious to the conversation we'd just had about him, despite him being two feet away.

We were walking across a quieter part of the town, where the roads were cracked open by time itself. That, and the mercilessly baking sun. Clearly, this town had been here for a long time. How it had been completely vacated, and how Bill had taken it over completely, was a mystery, one that I had a niggling feeling I wouldn't be solving any time soon. Scratch that, it would be one I wouldn't be solving, period.

"I hope Joel's made the right choice with this moron." Ellie sighed.

"Definitely a complete nutter." I agreed, nodding wearily and jerked a thumb at him. "He's clearly been here a while though, so he's probably our best bet in this area."

"It's one hell of a bet." She muttered.

"On another note," I looked up at Joel to make sure he wasn't listening in, then resumed. "What's with Joel and him not letting you near a gun?"

"Fuck if I know." She sighed. "You'd think in a time and place like this he'd let me defend myself."

"You can use mine if you like." I offered, but she waved it away.

"You'd be better off with it than me." She smiled.

Maybe it was just me, but every time this girl smiled, she looked startlingly like Erin did. The same green eyes, soft-coloured hair only a tint redder than Erin's, and of course, her ability to keep calm. Once she spoke, though, the illusion was broken. Ellie's voice was much rougher than Erin's was.

"Here we are." Bill announced to us all. We had come to a locked gate, to which he fumbled with for a few seconds before flinging it open. "This is my second warehouse. We'll restock before we get going, because that area's riddled with infected bastards."

We all passed through the rusted metal gate before Bill stayed behind to lock it.

"You sure that'll hold up?" Joel eyed the gate as it clanged.

"Well it's locked." Bill retorted. "They don't have the key."

_This guy is fucking nuts!_

But like I'd said before, he probably was our only bet on a car.

With some effort, Bill managed to lift the cellar doors to a huge building, and we stepped down into the basement of it. Inside was a large hallway, filled with all sorts. It was dark, too dark to see, so Bill lit an old fashioned hurricane lamp, giving visible light to our surroundings

It wasn't as large as I thought it was, the hallway. Maybe fifteen metres long, at most. I recognized the cans on the shelves, nails sticking out of them. Bill had used several of them to clear the path to his first safehouse: Nailbombs. They seemed harmless enough, but if one was foolish enough to push the nail too far into the can, it would explode, shooting shrapnel and fire at anyone within a two metre radius.

"You two, don't touch anything." He pointed two us both with a hard, long finger. "And you, shut the door." He added to Joel. Convenient time for him to be unable to refer to us by our names.

"Let's gear up." Joel sighed and followed Bill. So did Ellie, but Joel wasn't having any of it. "No, you stay here."

"What? I need a gun too!" She insisted.

"No you don't."

"Joel!" She looked him in the eye, intent on staring him down, despite the height difference. "I can handle myself." Her tone was firm, one I wouldn't have argued with. Joel must have had a strong spine, because his next answer was just as firm.

"No, and that's final." With that, he walked off with Bill to 'gear up'.

"Fine!" She called after him, clearly pissed. "I'll just wait around for you two to get me killed!"

Their voices became more distant as they approached the shelf filled with what were undoubtedly huge, polished-

"Shotguns…?" I muttered aloud. "Where the hell would a guy like him get shotguns?" Ellie must not have heard me, because she continued glaring at the pair. I shrugged and went closer to the cabinet, content to find it full of 9mm pistol rounds. I swiped five cartridges, about thirty bullets, then slipped four into my backpack, leaving one to reload my empty gun. I was sure he wouldn't mind. What he didn't know wouldn't leave a mark, right?

"How the hell is Tess okay with this suicide mission?" Bill's voice drifted from across the hall. At these words, Ellie looked away instantly, her angry expression vanishing in an instant.

"You okay?" I couldn't help myself asking.

"I'm fine. I just get bummed out every time Tess comes up." She sighed.

"Tess… The woman from the state building?"

"Yeah…" Her voice drifted off. "I want to apologize for it. She wouldn't have died if I wasn't there to be smuggled."

"Hey, it's not like you were the infected person who bit her right? And you weren't the one who put a bullet in her." I had to oppose that line of thought: Ellie had no reason to be guilty. Despite that, she bit her lip in regret.

"Yeah, I guess I wasn't…"

"Then it wasn't your fault." I shrugged. "Maybe it's just me, but I always say that it's never anyone's fault unless…they caused it to happen directly…" My voice wavered a little, flashes of a taller boy who looked similar to me, holding a rifle and smiling back at me, zipped through my mind. I shook myself and forced the images of Kazuki out of my mind. Ellie still looked uncertain when I had finished, so I put a hand on her shoulder, causing her to look at me. "If it makes you feel bad, just go apologize. It'll make you feel better." I smiled warmly, for the first time since I'd joined this little group, encouraging her. It wasn't exactly a smiling moment, but if it encouraged her…"He said not to bring it up again, but if you bring it up quickly and leave it at that, he'll have nothing to get mad at." Of course… I was the one who put a bullet in my own brother's head, so that was my fault...

"If you say so." She rolled her eyes, pretending to brush it off, flashing me another smile, then tacked on a quiet word. "Thanks."

"Any time."

Her eyes strayed to a pile of magazines, strewn across a nearby table. They were clearly from before the apocalypse, shown by the dates in the corner of each one. _October 2012, March 2018, January 2022… They aren't even in order…_

Before I could comment, Ellie edged towards the pile of messy magazines and began to stack them up properly. She hadn't even been fiddling for more than five seconds before Bill's voice came, much louder than before, to shock her out of her actions.

"HEY! What did I say when we came in here? What did I say?" He was remarkably angry, despite the fact she was only cleaning up after him.

"I was just… fixing your stupid pile!" She shot back.

"Don't. Touch!"

She groaned audibly, in frustration, and flipped him off with an incredibly rude hand gesture.

_Heck, even if we're similar in background and family, she sure is a hell of a lot more aggressive than I am._

"Come on." I forced a smile. "If we find a pistol or something later, you could pick it up before Joel sees."

"Not a bad idea." She mused.

"C'mon, Ellie." Joel called. I followed him as he tapped his shotgun, testing it's barrel.

We must have been going to a really dangerous area, seeing Joel's wide variety of weapons, with a pistol in his back pocket, a bow and a rifle in his backpack and a shotgun in his hands.

* * *

It had been, what, ten minutes into our little sneak around the neighborhood. Every one of us lay low, behind obstacles and fallen rubble. In the short time we'd been travelling, we'd seen no less than five clickers. Dead dangerous.

"What the hell…" I whispered. Instantly, I felt a rough hand clamp around my mouth. Instinct threw my fist backwards, at my assailant, before I realized it was Bill.

"What the fuck are you-"

"Will-you-shut-up!" Bill hissed. His eyes were of mixed rage and frustration, before I realized what he was stopping me from doing. A clicker, not five feet away, turned it's head towards us.

We didn't dare to breathe, in case it gave us away. Clickers were blind, but super sensitive to sound. Did it hear our hearts beating, louder than any drum?

Apparently not. It turned away, leaving us clear and alone. Bill glared at me as though I was pointing a gun at him, but he did not speak another word. His expression, however, communicated his message as clear as day: If you dare speak again, I'll gut you.

I was tempted to imitate Ellie's earlier finger gesture.

Joel motioned towards a clicker that was slowly coming towards us, and made a quick wave across his throat, and I understood what he was about to do.

Just as it came within range, Joel darted forward and wrapped around it, choking the creature with his arm. A second of struggle, before he pulled a shiv out of seemingly nowhere and rammed it into the clicker's neck. It squirmed and choked, then fell, lifeless to the ground.

We breathed out. One down, a dozen to go. That wasn't so bad.

The process was slow, painful and tense. We would creep forward, avoid clickers from a distance, silently stab those that were too close. We couldn't stab them all normally, but Bill seemed to have brought enough knives in his best and pockets to supply a small army. I figured that he'd had plenty of time to make them all.

"Keep low, I'll check out ahead." He whispered to us before standing slowly and creeping forward. He hasn't walked more than ten paces, though, before his face twisted angrily and he swore loudly, not bothering to keep his voice low.

"What is it, Bill?" Joel followed him and looked around the bus which obscured our view, and stopped. I got up and looked as well, then felt Ellie follow me from behind. I think I can speak for us all when I say that we all wished we hadn't gotten up at all.

A shriek elicited from a crowd of no less than twenty runners alerted a pack of clickers, and the Stalkers turned their heads in sync.

"Oh shit, shit, shit..." I heard Joel whisper, before he turned tail and screamed, "RUN!"

"Dammit!" Bill cursed, then slipped a hand into his backpack and tossed a tin can impaled with nails at the crowd. "Keep your legs moving, that thing's gonna blow." He advised, before speeding ahead of us all. He was much fitter than we were led to believe, it appeared.

BOOM.

The explosion rocked us to our core, causing me to stumble slightly. I almost tripped, and was silently congratulating myself for not actually falling, when suddenly-

"Ack! Fuck, are you serious?!"

That was when I realised that Ellie had fallen, pushed to the ground by the force of the explosion. Her face was contorted with pain, and I stopped to help her up. Even before she did, I had a bad feeling that I knew what was coming next.

"Ten... Thanks and all, but my ankle hurts like shit..."

"Great." I deadpanned. "Can you tell your ankle not to sprain when we're running away from infected?"

"There are a lot less now, Bill's bomb did the trick." She pointed at the wreckage. True enough, there were significantly less infected than when we started. However, that still made about half a dozen runners, three Stalkers and a clicker. Behind me, I heard Joel turn around to come back to us.

"Welp, only one thing for it, I guess." I pulled up my gun as Joel pulled up. Clearly, we both had the idea to make the stand.

"You're all idiots, you know that?" Bill broke the moment. "The bomb will only clear up a few of this lot, if we don't keep running, more will overwhelm us, and we'll be too fucked to fix up your goddamn car." It was a long sentence, given the situation, and I didn't waste another on informing them of my sudden idea.

"Ten, what are you- Whoa!" Ellie cut off as I lifted her, one hand on the small of her back, another behind her legs.

"C'mon, didn't you say we needed to keep running?" I quipped. Bill shrugged and turned tail, running as fast as he could. Joel shook his head, then shot a runner with his pistol, straight to the head, then turned and followed Bill's choice, motioning for us to follow. "Damn, you're light, Ellie."

"You could have told me you were going to do that." She grumbled, but her eyes sparkled with gratitude.

"Where's the fun in that?" I laughed shakily. I had to admit, this would slow me down, but it was certainly better than the alternative. Better to move slowly than not at all.

It was probably a good thing that Joel was the one defending us and not me, because his arsenal, combined with his calm and his years of experience, made him a much more suitable protector than me. He aimed and took our runners at twenty feet, before they were even a problem, then turned and shot the Stalkers sneaking up in us, switching to pistol to conserve rifle bullets, then pulled out his shotgun and kept running.

The word "badass" came to mind.

Bill was no slacker with his machete either. His strikes were precise, and took out the infected in a single blow.

It was infuriating, not being able to help, but nothing compared to any anger I would feel if I let us both down and died, so I kept running, following Bill, pretending to understand where I was going. There was a feeling of disconnect, as I ran and ran, not knowing where I was going, nor how quickly, and painfully, we would die if I slowed. I definitely wasn't prepared to find out.

* * *

It took forever, but eventually, we outran the crowd. As long as we stayed low and quiet, we would survive. We had arrived at a suburban backyard, complete with mossy, dried up swimming pool and vines over the fence. How we managed to climb over the fence was a little fuzzy, though I remember passing Ellie over to Joel, and then climbing over myself, before passing her back to me.

"I feel like some kind of doll." She grumbled as I lifted her up again.

"Well, you look the part." I quipped.

"Right." Bill grunted. "I just did a quick test, and I can't hear anything living in this house. We're going to get supplies to get little missy on her feet. Got it?" He glared at her, as though it was her fault that her ankle sprained. She glared right back, until he stalked away.

"Alright, settle down Ellie. I've already got summat like that in my first aid kit." Joel sighed. He seemed irritated and tired beyond belief, and surely was looking forward to some rest tonight.

We wrapped up her foot in the bandage, making it stiff, so as to let her walk without moving the muscle too much. Soon, she could stand and walk a out without too much trouble.

"How does that feel?" I asked, concerned.

"I won't be winning any races like this, but I'll survive." She shrugged. I hoped she was right. The gate to the house, while rusted, was still fully functional, and we lifted it up together, after some difficulty.

"You two stay in the house." Bill commanded, as though we were two years of age. "Joel, lets raid the joint."

"Yeah, because we definitely want to go out of the house right now." I rolled my eyes. "So many wonders to see! Clickers and all-"

"Boy, enough." Joel cut me off. Ellie smiled a little, but simply nodded. We waited downstairs, sitting on the dilapidated couch, patches of leather and iron springs sticking out of it.

"You think the internal designer's on strike?" Ellie poked a spring back into place, careful not to cut herself.

"Well, permanent strike is more likely." I grimaced. "I really don't know what to make of this Bill guy. I mean, he's-"

"An asshole."

"...not the word I was going to use, but I guess that works."

She laughed. Again, her face looked so reminiscent of Erin every time her lips curved upwards, and her eyes lit up a little more.

_"Hey, Tensei." Erin's voice floated from behind. I turned around just in time to catch a small box._

_"What's this?" I asked, a little smile lifting the corners of my lips._

_"Well, if I took the trouble to wrap it in a box, I wouldn't be telling you straight up what it is, now would I?" I didn't even have to look to know that there was a smirk on her face._

_I unwrapped the box and found a book. At first I thought it was in tatters, before I realised the book was designed to look old and used. Years of age and settled in, and it really did become old. Next to it was a bundle of pens, tied together with a thin string of raffia._

"_Cool, I always wanted tinder." I poked the brittle pages of the book. She laughed and slapped the back of my head lightly. "Seriously though, Er, what is it?" I often ended up calling her Er, the same way I pronounced 'air,' though I can't remember where I picked up the habit._

"_Well, you always seemed so interested in all the books we find all over the place, I thought you'd like to give writing your own a try." She sat down on the couch next to me and took the bundle of pens. "You have no idea how much trouble I went to, getting these. They were in the office block across town, so I snuck past the checkpoint."_

"_Again?" Her smile faded as she heard the concern in my voice. _

"_Hey, before you go off on that whole 'don't be so reckless' spiel, I'm alive now, aren't I?" Erin smiled at me, but a more serious look was in her eyes._

"_...Fine." I conceded. "Just… let me come with you with you next time. You know I get worried."_

_She laughed at me, though there was a flicker of uncertainty in it. "If it makes you feel better, then sure."_

_The next time we did something dangerous, we all came with her, and her mother was killed. That wasn't quite what I had in mind by following her._

"I did it!"

"Huh? What?" I snapped out of my thoughts and looked over at Ellie, who had apparently left in the time that I was absorbed in my own thoughts. Her face was slightly flushed, and she was out of breath, though smiling from ear to ear.

"I went up to Joel and apologized…" She admitted. "You'd think it'd be easy to say sorry, but it was actually pretty nerve racking."

"Oh really?" I smiled at her. Redemption from guilt was always a liberating feeling. Though I would hope to feel it someday, I placed little actual faith in it. "And what did he say?"

"He… said not to worry about it… about him." She corrected herself, her excitement fading now. She opened her mouth to say something else, but then closed it. I frowned, concerned, but dropped the matter. "That aside, are you alright?"

"Me? I'm just fine. Waiting for the next clicker to pop up, I guess." I took a breath and leaned back. "I'm just happy to have a direction now."

"Direction?" Ellie tilted her head

"Yeah." I began to elaborate. "After I was… alone, I didn't know where to go next, so I stumbled till I found you guys."

"...Huh… Hey, can I ask you a question, Ten?" Ellie's voice was full of curiousity, but also slightly reluctant. I could guess what she was about to ask, but feigned naiveté.

"What is it?"

"...What happened to you? How did you end up alone, and who were you with beforehand, if you had a direction before you found us?"

I didn't feel ready, but I didn't want to it to Ellie. So I got up and turned to her with what I hoped was a smile. "How about this? If we survive this fuckfest somehow, tonight, I'll tell you."

"Deal."

I held out my pinky and waited, but she simply stared at it. "What? Do you want me to do something with your pinky?"

"Never heard of a pinky swear?" I cocked my head. In retrospect, it might have been a little childish, but what the hell, in a world where we grew up with infected, mindless creatures, what did I know about childish? "It's where you wrap your pinky around someone else's and promise. It makes it special… kind of?"

"How does that change anything?" Ellie looked as though I was the weird one in the equation.

"I don't know." I admitted. "But it seems like something we'll remember so…"

I genuinely thought she was going to call me a moron or something, with the look she gave me. Ten whole seconds passed, and my arm was getting tired, before she finally giggled. and lifted her pinky to mine, wrapping it around. "Alright then, it seems like a cute idea. Didn't expect you to be like that."

"T-that's not the idea… I mean, I just thought of it." A strange shyness came over me when she responded like that, but she simply laughed.

I did keep that promise, but we'd been through hell before then, no doubt about that.

* * *

**T/N: Foreboding! Shock! Words!**

**I think I owe you guys an apology. School is also getting pretty damn heavy on me, and I've been staying up past midnight to get my essays done. Do you know how annoying it is? :( A thousand word essay, written predominantly it Kanji and Hiragana… Ow.**

**Well, enough moaning, let's get to the review section.**

**Water Gaurdian 26: Well, that would be interesting, but let's stick with what we do know about his traps. Stick around, I promise it gets better :)**

**ZomBSlayer357: Got it. I definitely will consider that. Thanks for reading.**

**XDenshaX: Thanks for reading! To clarify, yes. Erin did indeed die, which is why I'm alone in this story. Glad you like the humour, I will be thinking about that.**

**Well, that's all for now! Tensei out!**


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